


we began with an ending

by myhomeistheshire



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-05-08
Packaged: 2018-03-29 16:05:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3902392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myhomeistheshire/pseuds/myhomeistheshire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on: soulmate au where instead of your soulmate's first words to you written on your skin it’s the last words you ever say to them so you don’t know who your soulmate is until you lose them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we began with an ending

_Goddamn it._

Those are the words emblazoned on her ribcage. Not, _I love you_. Not, _please don’t leave me_. No, apparently she’s a bigger asshole than she thought.

 

She goes through life mainly ignoring the words - they come up, every once in a while, but she’s gotten used to shaking them off. She’s pretty much decided that her soulmate is going to die right when she meets them - it makes the most sense, and while it sucks, she’s gotten used to it. Soulmates are overrated, anyway - her grandparents had had the most beautiful marriage she’s ever seen, and they didn’t know they weren’t soulmates until her grandmother passed away peacefully in a hospital bed, without speaking the words on her grandfather’s foot.

 

She’s always been a little skeptical of the soulmate system, anyway - wouldn’t your soulmate know what your words were? Wouldn’t they just say them before they died so the other person would think they were soulmates? Maybe soulmates don’t even exist, and the words are meaningless.

 

She finds it freeing, to not have to worry endlessly about a soulmate. No one outside of her immediately family knows about her words (and they can’t tell anyone, now). So when she finds herself falling for Matt Murdock - well, she’s more than a little happy she’s not focused on finding The One.

(She’s never asked him about his words. It’s not something she wants to know.)

 

She tells herself to snap out of it, once he tells her about his secret night life - she’s so furious that for a whole week she almost convinces herself that she doesn’t care about him. Until, of course, she realizes that the reason she’s so furious is that she cares.

 

They go back to normal, after that - except. Except the one night, when she was drunk and he was wounded and when she kissed him he tasted like forgiveness.

(She tries to forget that night.)

 

She joins him, every once in a while, while he’s taking on smaller marks - he agreed to teach her self-defense reluctantly, and she latched onto it like a life raft - but tonight it’s different, tonight it was a trap and they’re outnumbered and she has a flash of the thought that maybe, just this once, Matt won’t be able to get them out of this.

 

They fight. They go down fighting, and they get up fighting, and they fight and fight and fight until they’re nothing more than a pair of bruised and bloody bodies. Until they defeat every last assailant.

 

“Karen?” A shaky voice from behind her coughs, and when she stumbles around she sees Matt, leaning against a wall. Matt, shaking.

 

Matt, with a knife in his gut.

 

“No, no, no.” Fuck. _Fuck._ This can’t be happening this isn’t happening except that she’s beside him now, she’s holding him up as he collapses into her, gasping.

“Karen.”

“Don’t say anything, Matt - don’t say anything.” She settles him down onto the pavement, his head in her lap, and she grabs her phone to dial 911 - except her phone isn’t in her pocket, she left it at home - “Goddamn it. _Goddamn it.”_

It takes a second to realize that the head in her lap isn’t moving.

“Matt?” She shakes his shoulder, gently and then less so, growing panic rising in her throat. “Matthew Michael Murdock, don’t you dare die on me. Matt?” Still nothing. An abyss of nothing, filled with her and an alley and a body she never wanted to see. “Matt, please. Come back, okay? _Come back.”_

 

She’s caressing his wrist when she notices that his shirt has ridden up above his waist - and there are words written beneath it.

 _Please, no._ Is all she can think, as her fingers gently brush the fabric away. _Please, god, don’t do this to me._

 

She reads the one word in silence.

 

_Karen._

 

She waits an eternity for the sirens, with his face in her hands and her name on his hip. This was always how it was going to end, after all.

 

 


End file.
